The Cabinet will on Wednesday take a call on providing relief to telecom operators, and look at raising the spectrum cap from the current 25 per cent to the industry demand of 35 per cent, among other things.

Both telecom players and regulator TRAI have been asking for the current intra-band cap to be replaced by a limit of 50 per cent on the combined spectrum holding in the sub-1 GHz bands (700 MHz, 800MHz and 900 MHz bands). There is no ceiling for the individual or combined spectrum holding in the above-1 GHz band.

“The principles applied in NIA (notice inviting applications) of August 2016 for calculation of spectrum cap, however, may continue to be applied while calculating the revised overall as well as sub-1 GHz spectrum cap,” a government official told BusinessLine .

The above spectrum caps may be revisited after the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) in 2019, which will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the official added.

Big relief

According to industry veterans and telecom experts, raising the cap will provide major relief to companies such as Vodafone and Idea — soon to be a merged entity — as they will breach the spectrum cap in certain locations under the existing rules.

Doing away with the ceiling on spectrum held by mobile operators within a particular band had been recommended by TRAI and the Department of Telecom (DoT).

TRAI had suggested a 50 per cent cap on combined radiowave holding in efficient bands such as 700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz. The regulator had also suggested that the overall spectrum cap should be raised from the current 25 per cent to 35 per cent.

A Telecom Commission under the DoT had also cleared some of the key recommendations made by an Inter-Ministerial Group formed to chalk out relief measures for the debt-ridden sector.

The sector’s debt is estimated to be around ₹4.6-lakh crore and operators have seen their margins narrow due to the stiff competition in the telecom market.

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